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Robert Treat Paine Papers

Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4

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From Joseph Greenleaf

18 November 1781

From John Hancock

23 November 1781
From Nathaniel Freeman
Freeman, Nathaniel RTP
Sandwich Novr. 19, 1781 Honorable Sir,

The Estates of Seth Perry, Thos. Perry,1 Ephraim Ellis Jr. & Thos. Bumpus2 Absentees late of Sandwich—are all Confessed insolvent & will not pay more than 10 or 15/. on the pound. Myself with others are a committee for selling such Estates in this County.

By the Tenor of the Acts & resolves I am not Clear that we can sell before Confiscation. I wish you to think of the matter & if you find I can write me by the bearer—if not pray you to direct Mr. Bourn to fill complaints &c. at our Decr. Court, & inclose it me.

Your answer by the bearer will much oblige yr. most obedt. Humble Servt.

N Freeman

RC ; addressed: “To Honorable Rob T Paine Esqr. Attory. General Boston”; notes on address sheet include figure tallies, courtroom notes, and the following: “a Dollar for a pair of Skates, and a quarter of a Dollar for mending the Kitchen Window.”

1.

The Massachusetts Banishment Act of 1778 lists Seth Perry as a mariner and Thomas as a yeoman, both of Sandwich. Seth was imprisoned there before he and Thomas, as well as three other Perrys, absconded to British lines in Rhode Island. Thomas continued on to New York and thence, with family in tow, to Shelburne, N.S., where he received a land grant. Seth eventually returned to Massachusetts, where he received rights of citizenship in 1788 due to an act of legislature (James Henry Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution [Boston, 1910], 139; Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, 2:565).

 2.

Ephraim Ellis, Jr., and Thomas Bumpus, both yeomen of Sandwich, were among those proscribed and banished in 1778.